


The Glass Coffin

by OrphanText



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Fairy Tales - Freeform, M/M, Major Character(s) death, Sci-Fi, Tragedy, Twisted Fairy Tales
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-11-12 11:37:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/490462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrphanText/pseuds/OrphanText
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a story, of a sleeping beauty in a far away land, protected and shielded by briars and thorns, waiting for a kiss from her one true love to rescue her from the suspension of time. This is a story of a ship, lost and stranded with a crew on board in the depths of space with a clock on their lives that is running out. A different story, but perhaps not so different after all. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Once Upon a Time

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Cabin Pressure or any of its related characters. It is sole property of the amazing John Finnemore and the prestigious BBC.
> 
> This story came about a week or two ago from me looking at HAL from 2001 Space Odyssey, and then combining it with Sleeping Beauty. I've never really watched it but I'm grabbing the general idea here. Another sci-fi one, hope you like this. People will die.

Once upon a time, there was a story of a princess who lived in a faraway Kingdom, who befell upon tragedy when she was sixteen. A curse from a fairy upon her birth, and a prick of her finger from a spindle’s end, upon which Morpheus engulfed her Kingdom whole and claimed it as his own, a city of the sleeping dead beyond its rusty, locked gates. Dust settled, and plants overgrew, unkempt briars and thorns creeping through the grounds into the castle, to entwine around the glass coffin in which the princess sleeps, accompanied by never-ending dreams, in a silent bubble protected from time’s harsh grasp, a suspended dream, the decay and the rotting mold held at bay.

 

There, she waits in fairness and beauty, for the prince to chance upon her sleeping Kingdom, to encroach upon Morpheus’ realm, to wake her with a kiss of true love pressed upon cold lips, a breath of life back into deadened, cold lungs.

 

Where the story goes next, we aren’t too sure. Perhaps the princess wakes, drawing in a shuddering, rattling breath back into her lungs, and falls in love with the prince with an overwhelming gratitude, and marries him as her Kingdom wakes to a happily ever after. Perhaps the spell is broken by the kiss, and time snatches the princess away once more, the rot and the decay settling into her bones, crumbling away into ashes and dust in the prince’s arms, blown away by the howling wind that screams its loss through the winding paths and forgotten houses, leaving nothing but grey and empty memories of what had never come to be. Perhaps the briars entrap the prince, a barrier of illusions, and he never finds the princess or the castle she lives in, a story that never began and never ended.

 

Yes, _that_ story.


	2. Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a reboot of the story because I was highly displeased with how I intended the sequence to go originally.
> 
> I hope this one works out better and I hope you like this one as you did the last, or if you didn't like that then this one is better.

_Grief is a deadweight, weighing him down more than the gravity in a space where there is no up or down. Grief is the silence, the darkness, and he is grateful, to not have his task illuminated for him, thrown into a glaring bright spotlight and render it all the more insurmountable. It is the bitter taste in his throat, the cold sweat prickling the back of his neck, and the dead weight in his arms. He checks, and checks, and checks again, the need to be perfect, to allow for zero error -_ not this time, not this time.

 

_He pulls air into his lungs, suffocating, and his heart is beating, desperation urged by adrenaline. Pale, so pale, he is almost dead and he feels sorrow, and he wants to plead for forgiveness, to throw himself down before them, to beg for mercy, for anything, for this to be a bad dream please, but he only touches, and smoothes the hair back, words bottled in his throat and yet he is unable to make even a sound. Coldness meets his fingers, and he wishes that there was a chance for him to say something, anything, but there is no time._

 

_It waits for him, a silent, towering creature that beckons him forwards with its wires, all blinking illuminating lights—and he goes along with it, its willing prey. Behind him lies pain, and ended possibilities and brilliance that is no more. He refuses to look, tears prickling in his eyes as he does what he is needed to do. He has never felt fear, this intense and frightening, a black hole threatening to swallow him alive, drawing away his strength, his determination, fingers trembling and he probably looked a sight. It is home—it is a foreign land. It is a place from where he will not return again. It hums beneath his fingertips, a sentient creature not yet alive, not yet, and he pauses, remembering the adoration, the affection, the love and the hope, a strong bright streak in the sickening, churning black. He steadies it, the anchor in his mind, red illuminating the panels, blinking, waiting._

 

_It is silent, and it is still._

 

_He draws in a breath. Wires warm beneath fingertips._

 

_His heart beats. Once._

  
_Twice._


	3. Luck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am aware that this is not chronologically in order.  
> Its on purpose. Call it an experiment.
> 
> Returned to chew on this when I'm stressed and need a boost with no pressure. Internship is really killing me I feel like I fucked it up and I'm so anxious and worried I could barely eat for 3 days.
> 
> Beta'ed by General_Buttons and also read through by ice_evanesco. Any other mistakes are mine.

They were running through the post take-off checklist when the pattering of footsteps sounded behind them, bringing with it the telltale clinking of glass on a tray.

****

“Great take-off, chaps,” Arthur chirped excitedly, at the same time Martin warned “Not now, Arthur” in a low voice.

****

“Bad timing?” Arthur didn’t sound fazed, carefully setting down the tray in a safe area where nothing could be damaged if anything was spilled yet was within comfortable reach of both the pilots. Martin was frowning at the dashboard and the monitor, taking in the quickly scrolling data and diagrams illuminated before him, tongue between his teeth.

****

“Oh, no need to worry yourself, Arthur.” Douglas immediately reached for his mug of tea at the first whiff of it. “Our captain is just worrying himself over the post take-off checks. Been at it since the start of take-off, actually. Bit of a perfectionist.”

****

“Not funny, Douglas,” came the clipped reply, before he dropped the notepad and pencil that he had been furiously scribbling with a gusty sigh. “I just don’t want anything to happen.” He scowled at the dashboard, the buttons continuing to blink innocently up at him, all charts and statistics as per normal.

****

“Don’t be dramatic.” Douglas calmly blew on his tea to cool the liquid, as Arthur uttered a soft exclaim and put both hands on his head.

****

“What are you doing?” Martin frowned, reaching past Douglas to snag his own mug, eyes on Arthur who had both hands firmly on his head.

****

“What?” The steward blinked at him.

****

“What?” If anything, Martin’s frown deepened.

****

They stared at each other.

****

“Oh, how wonderful, I seem to have acquired a pair of parrots in my ship,” came a voice from behind, punctuated by the sharp clicks of heels on the ship’s hard worn floor. “Arthur, dear, please put your hands down and stop looking quite so silly.”

****

“Awh, but mum,” Arthur began, but was cut short by a sharp gesture from Carolyn.

****

“You have duties to tend to, see to it,” she said, remaining formidable in her older years, shooed her son away who went off with a weak explanation that he wasn’t wasting time standing around doing nothing and he really was about to see to it shortly trailing after him, before the metal doors hissed shut behind him.

****

“So, imbeciles, anything to report?” She turned back to the two pilots meekly sipping their hot drinks, directing her gaze at Martin, who hunched lower in his seat, and eventually flushed pink.

****

“Uhm, no, Carolyn.” Martin did not look up from his mug, seeming to be highly fascinated by the contents within. “Everything’s fine.”

****

Douglas pressed his palm flat on the interface, drawing up a map on the digital interface before them, lights connecting dots into a line through the projected stars and space before them. “This is the path that we’ve charted - since there is turbulence in this area and this, we will have to go by the longer route, adding another day to our journey time.”

****

Carolyn made a sound in her throat.

****

“We’ll still be on schedule,” Douglas added. “And safe.”

****

There was another sound from her, which Martin thought wasn’t entirely unlike the kind of sounds that dogs make before tearing into their prey to rend flesh and skin apart, before she departed with a sharp “See to it that it stays that way”, the door hissing shut behind her.

****

“So,” Martin said after a beat of silence. “What was that about?”

****

“Which bit? There were quite a lot of bits before we were interrupted.” Douglas keyed in several commands into the dashboard, leaving the interface before them a wide expanse of space that was outside, the map faintly superimposed over the darkness and brightly glowing stars, leaving the diagrams and charts to the sides of it for monitoring.

****

“The head bit. The Arthur... bit,” Martin gestured to his head, shifting into a slightly more comfortable position on his seat.

****

“His good luck charm, you mean?” Douglas tapped a knuckle lightly against the side of Martin’s head. “Touch wood?” He grinned as his hand was swatted away by his annoyed captain. “He thinks it’s brilliant fun.”

****

“Carolyn wouldn’t be pleased if she found out,” Martin said. “That isn’t a nice thing to do, Douglas.”

****

“Bit of harmless fun, he finds it interesting,” the man shrugged. “Besides, where else can you find wood on our dear GERTI?”

****

Martin cast a look about the flight control deck, all brushed steel and reinforced glass. “You could... give him a sheet of paper. Well it’s not technically wood, but it’s made from wood so it is _processed_ wood so it should count.”

****

Douglas only gave him a fond, exasperated look. “Oh, my _Captain_.”

****

“No, don’t you start. It’s silly, but my logic is perfectly sound.” Martin fussed with the screens before him, swiping across them, a hint of pink stealing across his cheeks.

****

“As you say, my Captain,” Douglas agreed easily, almost too easily and that earns him a wary look from Martin. He stretches, and stands, straightening his uniform. “I’ll be attending to some urgent business of mine, then. I’ll leave you in control of the ship.”

****

“I have control,” Martin said, head bent over his screens. “Don’t take too long.”

****

He pulled them all up onto the main screen so that it makes for easier monitoring, listening to Douglas’ retreating footsteps, and then relaxed when he heard the hiss of doors closing behind him, leaning back and picking up his mug again. The graphs flickered before him, numbers and lines in order. All is well, all is damnably well.

 **  
**Martin lifts a loosely formed fist to his head and taps lightly against the side of it. “For luck,” he whispered.


	4. Then

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbetaed. I don't know what to say I took really long finding a writing drive again.

Space is vast.

 

Or perhaps to say that Space is vast is simply to say that the ocean is damp. There is nothing, absolutely nothing that can be used to describe it in its entirely when everything else and every other word that comes to Martin’s mind pales in comparison. It is human to want to quantify the mysterious, to understand the unknown, to map and to make sense of what is still beyond the limitations of him and his understanding. As a child, he was endlessly fascinated with stories woven around it, hopelessly in love with the idea of adventures, of being out there, taking on the unknown, the idea of being a Captain of his very own ship on an adventure.

****

As an adult, he was endlessly fascinated with the idea of all these near magical but logically sound numbers and calculations that keeps a ship in the air, and the fact that it was possible for humans to be in space, to defy nature the way they did in the most outrageous way—to do something that they were not meant to do at all. In a way, he has never forgotten the boyish dreams of sailing in the air, of piloting a ship if he cannot be one himself.

****

Reality is, as always, begging to differ.

****

Through the years, he learns that it is impossible for him to acquire a spaceship of his own, that it takes too much money of which he doesn’t have, and that one does not just simply stumble upon an abandoned spaceship in the field, no matter how many rounds he’s made of it, never mind the stories that told him it was true.

****

He learns, much later on, that a license is required to be a pilot, where he can be in charge of a ship.

****

Later on after that, he learns that there is much learning and memorizing and tests to do before one gets the license, and that it is possible for one to fail them. Multiple times.

****

All of the above failing to deter him from his goals, and he finally emerges a fresh-faced pilot, stumbling out into the world and into the possibilities of being Captain of a grand ship and about damn time.

****

****

* * *

 

****

The proposed offer was for him to be Captain, to take the post without a salary, with a small crew on board. It isn’t ideal living, to survive on the meager income that he makes outside of flying spaceships, on a schedule already crammed full of cargo flights to and fro from star to star, planet to planet, with the occasional picky human on board as passenger on their little ship. It was far from the grandiose dream that he once held close to him in his sleep, in the cramped little room that he calls ‘home’. He gets ridiculed, people treating him with disrespect, disbelief in their voices and eyes when he informs them that he is captain of the ship. He knows how he looks, swallowed up in a captain’s uniform passed on from the previous employee under Carolyn’s rule, a man too young with hair too ridiculous to be taken seriously, a smattering of freckles across his nose that speaks of his age and any, if possible experience.

****

There are no adventures, no exploring the unknown expanse of space, no sudden encounterings with alien or enemy ships, navigating their way through dangerous terrains for their lives, but he knew that already. What there is are repetitive trips, familiar routes, and the neverending black space before him. They do visit new places, a most welcome break in the monotony, but when the thrill wears off, one place is similar to any other, honestly.

****

That is not to say that Martin Crieff has fallen out of love. No, if given any other choices—and there are many choices—he could not see himself doing anything else other than flying. Given, the job scopes were dull, teeth achingly monotonous, and was constantly accompanied by ribbing from his crew and jibes from his passengers, but there was nothing else that could compare to the moments when they were lifting up, breaking through into space, the moments when there is absolute silence but the quiet hum of machinery and G-ERTI, and the idea of being just a speck out in the vastness. Of surviving because of invention by men, hundreds of tonnes of metal and pure hope that it wouldn’t fall out of the sky.

****

And then there is G-ERTI.

****

To be honest, G-ERTI isn’t the kind of ship that one would trust immediately. She creaked, groaned, and sounded as though there were loose parts and always had bits falling off her and stuck back on haphazardly again, which wasn’t necessarily untrue. It was not uncommon to see clients giving her a dirty look, or to smile, awkwardly, just to be polite, to ask if that’s the ship they’re going on. G-ERTI had always been old, and she has always been the only thing that the crew treasured above all. Cranky, fussy, fickle old G-ERTI - she wasn’t the first ship that Captain Martin Crieff had laid eyes upon, fresh-faced and newly graduated with his Type-III space license, but she was the ship that he fell into love with, amongst many other giants of ships, made of gleaming metal and polished hulls, tiny, battered G-ERTI was the one who stole and kept his heart. And for what she gave him, he poured his whole being into her, taking her on interplanetary flights, ensuring that each take off was successful, and that all of them reached home safely and in one piece at the end of the journey, and left no bit of G-ERTI behind in whichever planet they landed on.

 

There was always talk, talk of when G-ERTI would give it up and fall apart, and that would be the end of them and their jobs and the crew, but the day never happened. She might creak, and groan, and otherwise protest loudly, but never once did she fail them. She is, for all that the crew thinks that she is, still a man-made machine, and it is a man-made mistake that fails them all, G-ERTI and her loyal little crew. Carolyn had always talked about retiring G-ERTI, about staying home with her son Arthur, running a smaller, more profitable business, but she never did, instead taking on job after job, interplanetary flight after interplanetary flight despite of the dangers and hazards that it posed, and this was where they ended up.

********  
  


Later into the picture would be GERTI’s crew, and suddenly there were four more additions to his family. There wasn’t space, but they had made space, somehow, and Martin simply hadn’t the heart to complain. There was Carolyn, Carolyn Knapp-Shappey, all sharp teeth, her bark worse than her bite, who got the spaceship in her merry divorce quite a number of years ago. Highly respected, or greatly feared, Martin had never figured out which one was which, but whatever she says, goes. He had been terribly intimidated by her when he had first approached them for an open position, and had expected rejection. Carolyn, who believed in a wet-behind-the-ears young pilot, taught him confidence in himself, treated him like an old employee under her command, gave him command of her ship.

****

And then, there was Arthur Shappey, the exuberant, happy-go-lucky idiot son of Carolyn’s spawn. Arthur, who had caught sight of Martin, ever nervous, lurking just out of sight with the piece of paper advertising an open job position clutched in a shaking hand, and still trying to come to terms of how this ship could still make it up into the air and not fall apart trying. Good natured, kind Arthur, who never made another job last for long enough for his mother to stop worrying about him, and took to working around and in G-ERTI doing the odds and ends of it, and always kept her neat and mostly clean. He was the one who had seen Martin, and had introduced him to G-ERTI and subsequently his mother, which was actually a rather terrifying thought now, and looked up to him as Commander of the spacecraft and often cheered him up. Arthur, who always knew how to make the coffee right, and stood by his ship and crew at all times, and could be depended on for a response, if not action.

****

And then, there was Douglas, Douglas Richardson, sub-commander of the ship and engineer. Douglas, whom he often fought with, jostled each other for the title once and again flight after flight, the man who had dismissed him with a look upon Carolyn’s announcement that Martin was to be the Captain of the ship from that fateful day onwards. Clever, witty, sly old Douglas, self declared Sky God who was never out of ideas or tricks to either cause embarrassment to his Captain, or to rescue the crew and their ship from yet another tight spot again and again. The man whom they often depended on now and again, who poked fun at them in times of peace, and rescued them from the fire, and whom Martin had finally set aside differences with and became mutual good friends with, and perhaps if he was being optimistic, something more.

****

Once, he could have lived a lifetime of flying with them.

 **  
**In the silence that fills up the ship, that exists in and all around him, he clings to these warm human memories, tries to recall emotion, and tries not to cower in fear from what had once fascinated him, inspired dreams, made him who he was – unmade him.


End file.
